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Astronauts Attach Mannequin to Outside of ISS
lhouk281 writes "According to Space.Com, astronauts have attached a mannequin to the outside of the International Space Station to study the effects of radiation on the human body. The mannequin contains actual bone surrounded by simulated organs and synthetic skin, with sensors studded throughout." There's another story that has detail on how the spacewalk went: a suit malfunction caused the spacewalk to end prematurely.
to they actually take a skeleton? or do they grind up a bunch of bones to make a kind of solid substance?
...what if air leaked out into space? That would suck!!
*ducks*
I could almost swear this was the subject of a Far Side cartoon..
That synthetic skin would have to be really strong for this thing not to blow up due to low pressure, wouldn't it?
Unless the real reason is to create space zombies for the purposes of space exploration. Think about it: no need to pack along food, no need to pack along oxygen...perfect for GW Bush's planned invasion of Mars.
While scientists have used Phantom-like dummies in the past aboard the space shuttle and inside the ISS, the radiation hazards of open space on sensitive body organs is still unclear.[emphasis added]
I'm just wondering how they would make claims from this - "See, the radiation at 2.5cm below the middle of the first left rib is X, therefore it will cause a mild nausea".
Sure, artificial organs would give a slightly better idea of the radiation penetration, but why would such knowledge be useful?
Ask me about repetitive DNA
Yeah right. I think it's more to "study the effect on a human body of being tied to the outside of the fucking spaceship".
Or, more specifically: "Put the fear of God into cosmonaut Josif by telling him if he forgets to put down the seat on the vacuum-toilet one more time, we're putting him out there next".
And next week, in the interest of furthering science and our understanding of the universe, the ISS will be installing a plank.
Now if the ISS was high enough to make this expierment useful, then it would be a great idea but the ISS is in a very low orbit well inside the protective magnetosphere of earth. While there isn't enough atmosphere to protect anyone from small particles, there is enough to slow its orbit down.
Once upon a time NASA decided to send three astronauts to space for two years.
One was American, One was Russian and the other was English.
NASA allowed each of them to take 200 pounds of baggage each.
The American decided to take along his wife, the Englishman decided to take along books to learn how to speak German, and the Russian decided to take along cigarettes.
Two years later, when the space shuttle landed, there was a big crowd waiting to welcome them home.
First came the American and his wife and each of them had a baby in their arms.
Next came the Englishman speaking fluent German. They both gave their speeches and got a rousing round of applause.
Suddenly, out came the Russian with a cigarette in his mouth. He walked up to the podium, snarled at the crowd, and asked "Has anyone got a match?"
I didn't know Janet Jackson was on the space station!
Such a shame...testing on a mannequin just isn't the same, but I guess you just make do with what you have.
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- Douglas Adams
Well, here's something that might be slightly related.
Ask me about repetitive DNA
...wake up in the morning and there's a body hanging outside your window. "There's something on the wing!"
Anyone else think one of the astronauts ordered a real doll and when the other astronauts caught him with it they put it outside? Then when NASA asked about the body outside the space station they just answered "Uhh well we're ummmmm testing the affects of radiation on the human body, yeah that's it."
Mayhaps in a similiar vein,
We could attach the "SCO Legal Team" to the bottom of a space shuttle, and find out what the radiation effects of reentry are on a pack of gravy sucking pigs...
Genda
I could almost swear this was the subject of a Far Side cartoon..
I could almost swear they are trying to reenact a couple of Kraftwerk albums.
Showroom dummies, outside the Spacelab, to study Radio-Activity?
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Yeah, I've always thought this too. And it's mostly right -- you certainly will never see that cringe-worthy bad-sci-fi staple of liquids "freezing and boiling at the same time."
But interestingly, I discovered just last week if you take a spaceship out of direct sunshine, it starts to lose heat pretty substantially. One of the first space stations (I forget which) had its heatshield buggered up by over-early deployment and it started to overheat dramatically. An astronaut pushed an umbrella arrangement out an airlock to provide cover from the sun, and the temperature "immediately began to drop" (ok, a little obvious) and was within the expected range within a day. I saw this on "The Planets" TV show which was excellently researched, so I'd assume this was pretty valid.
In summary, radiation of heat seems to still provide a pretty good cooling mechanism in space, despite being much slower than conduction.
So while you'll be relieved to know you'll asphyxiate in comfort and warmth, you'll eventually become a corpsicle if you stay out of the sun(light).
cheers, Sal
--
Sal
Writings: saltation.blogspot.com
Wravings: go-blog-go.blogspot.com
That synthetic skin would have to be really strong for this thing not to blow up due to low pressure, wouldn't it?
Actually the phantom is made up of several slices, about 30, stacked on top of each other on a central rod. (Think of the old baby toy.) The main material of the phantom is called RANDO(R). It's embedded with bits of bone and polyurethane to simulate organs. I believe the "natural bone" is ground up and reshaped into bone like structures.
To answer your question, there's really nothing to "blow up" during depressurisation. All of the phantom slices are solid with lots of cut-outs for radiation detectors.
- charboy
Let's hope it does nothing, as in no space debris hits the space station.
Actually space debris and meteoroids hit ISS quite often. So far they have been very small and as you say hopefully it remains that way. ISS is designed to withstand impacts up to a certain size and probability by placing an additional wall outside the pressurised module to absorb and diffuse the impact. Learn more about the general policy in Protecting the Space Station from Meteoroids and Orbital Debris. Or see a short explanation of the Meteorid / Debris Protection System for Node 2.
- charboy
There's nothing special about radiation in space. It can and has been reproduced here and there had been extensive research done on it. This looks to me like another science fair type experiment on the ISS. It's like when I didn't water a plant in 4th grade, recorded that it died and called it a project.
Blaze a trail to the New World
...but we know it's really a scarecrow to keep away those pesky space aliens!
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